Talk:Wizards' Council
... Now what? Seth... Why did you change my edit so that it makes it sound anything else could possibly be the case...? -.-' Ninclow (talk) 13:10, March 11, 2018 (UTC) :Because anything else could possibly be the case. -- [[User:Seth Cooper| Seth Cooper ]][[User talk:Seth Cooper| owl post!]] 15:02, March 11, 2018 (UTC) Oh it can, can it? Intersting hypothesis you've got going on there, Seth. Care to elaborate a little for my benefit? Ninclow (talk) 15:13, March 11, 2018 (UTC) :I'm presenting no hypothesis. Though there are certainly numerous alternative ones. Onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit, non ei qui negat. -- [[User:Seth Cooper| Seth Cooper ]][[User talk:Seth Cooper| owl post!]] 15:56, March 11, 2018 (UTC) If that is indeed the case, it is even more strange that you seem reluctant to present me as much as one when I ask for an example. Ninclow (talk) 16:37, March 11, 2018 (UTC) ::Why would I? You are the one claiming anything else couldn't possibly be the case, you carry the burden of proof. -- [[User:Seth Cooper| Seth Cooper ]][[User talk:Seth Cooper| owl post!]] 18:08, March 11, 2018 (UTC) Does it? My impression you started this thing (indirectly, but still) by claiming there could be multiple scenarios. I'd say the burden of evidence for that claim lies with you. Ninclow (talk) 18:53, March 11, 2018 (UTC) :That is the default position. When one does not know, one does not presume to know. -- [[User:Seth Cooper| Seth Cooper ]][[User talk:Seth Cooper| owl post!]] 19:03, March 11, 2018 (UTC) But - you just claimed to know for a fact that we don't know? Ninclow (talk) 19:11, March 11, 2018 (UTC) :Yes I did, because that information is not available on any canon source. What exactly bothers you about my edits to this article? -- [[User:Seth Cooper| Seth Cooper ]][[User talk:Seth Cooper| owl post!]] 19:29, March 11, 2018 (UTC) We're back to cantextual evidence again for this one. Valid either you choose to acknowledge it this time or not, even though your acknowledgement still determines if it is to be added to the page or not. Sure you want to hear my reasoning? Ninclow (talk) 20:37, March 11, 2018 (UTC) :I'm pretty sure I already read it on the article. Context, as I have already pointed out elsewhere, is merely suggestive: it gives hints and points us in some direction, but ultimately proves nothing. This is especially blatant in this case in which the information we have about the inception of the Wizards' Council is close to nil. -- [[User:Seth Cooper| Seth Cooper ]][[User talk:Seth Cooper| owl post!]] 22:29, March 11, 2018 (UTC) No, context is not suggestive, it is an indication. According to the dictionary, the word context 'are defined as "''the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood", or alnternatively as "the parts of something written or spoken that immediately precede and follow a word or passage and clarify its meaning". It's definitive, there is nothing suggestive about it. We don't ''need ''to have the full scope of the history of the Wizards's Council, because other details fills in the blanks, since they're part of the same universe and corresponds to one another. Ninclow (talk) 07:47, March 12, 2018 (UTC) :Context is definitive, sure, and it helps clarify meaning; abusive inferences are and do not. I beg to differ that, in this case, "other details" fill in the blanks -- as I'm tired of repeating by now, as many other scenarios that fit the (very, very scarce) available data can be thought of, nothing can be conclusively proven. -- [[User:Seth Cooper| '''Seth Cooper ]][[User talk:Seth Cooper| owl post!]] 11:29, March 12, 2018 (UTC) ::If you by abusive inference mean to say I reached a conclusion on the basis of evidence and reasoning, then it would appear you have just saved me the trouble of stressing my point about the importance of context, since context is what I have been referring to all this time, not any subjective reasoning of my own. ::Tired though you might be of feeling the need to repeat yourself, I am arguably even more so, to see you continue using the same logic applied in political, social and religious debate in real life on a non-existent universe. As I already told you once already on the talk page of Corban Yaxley, that's not how you analyze a work of fiction. You have what is contained within the books, and then you have what's stated by the author, and what isn't, and in addittion, we have subtle clues within the narritive of the story/additional information in question from which one can derive additional little pieces of information, building on what already is stated by the storyline by virtue of the context in which it was said. In this case, wizardkind during medieval times. ::As you might recall if you bothered to read through the whole thing I added on the BTS section on this page, and I can't really blame you if you didn't and just skimmed it, as yes - it was a bit of an overkill, we know that during the Middle Ages, witches and wizards was indeed fully ''integrated in Muggle society because prior to the witch huntings, there were no need for and did not exist any wizarding secrecy. As noted in canon, the medieval witch burnings was in large part fueled by a fearful hatred for magic. A fear and a hatred that clearly did not exist in the days when witches and wizards could even be found among nobility. That ''would not, and could not have been the case if the Muggles weren't fully aware of the existence of and accepting of having witches and wizards in their midst. And before you start theorizing that Muggles "might might have been ignorant of Sir Nicholas being a wizard, let me remind you that the members of the royal court of King Henry VII was very much aware, as seen by how Lady Grieve, a member of the court, actually requested him ''to use magic to help ''her, with no mention or other indication that he admitted to what he was and hoped she would keep the secret. Why was no such discreet admittance on the knight's part mentioned? Because it didn't happen, otherwise it would have been mentioned or at least alluded to, and Rowling would have tied his execution into the whole "early prosecution witches and wizards" thing. How do I know? Again, because authors don't lie and/or actively decieve their readers unless it is important to the plot, meaning if Rowling said Nick was hiding his true nature, he did, and if she did not say anything of the sort, then Nick didn't and didn't have to. ::Also, keep in mind that the Wizards' Council existed in a place governed by an absolute monarchy, meaning the king ruled the land and everybody else was his subjects. That's how an abslute monarchy works, the whims and wishes of the king becomes law and those who don't accept it suffer the consequences, magical or non-magical, it don't matter. They're all humans and living in his kingdoms, hence subjected to his laws. As we see from Chief Barberus Bragge, the existence of the Wizards' Council predates the execution of Sir Nicholas, which itself predated the witch-huntings, and as such also predating wizardkind "stating to live double lives" and proving, how rather than being made to help wizards in response to witch hunting, it existed long before, under the figurative roof of an absolute monarchy. And if the Wizards' Council had existed and tried to assert control over their own kind without the approval of the king, the Council would have been subjected to prosecution prior to the canonically dated later witch huntings for defying the king's authority by trying to assert authority of their own on portions of his subjects. Which, for the reasons given above, we know didn't happen. ::Therefore, the Wizards' Council could not have been organised and established and openly operate under the existence of an absolute monarcy without prior consent from the Crown, otherwise, the Council wouldn't have existed for very long, which we know it did. Ninclow (talk) 20:53, March 12, 2018 (UTC) By "abusive inference" I mean, of course, to conclude something that does not necessarily follow from the available data. Logic is logic; logical enquiry and argument analysis are universal and the same regardless of subject. To assume something that hasn't been adequately proven is true becuase it hasn't been disproven is bad logic in any context. Regardless, I contest that wizards and Muggles were ever fully integrated: Muggles seem to not have always feared and hated their wizarding counterparts to some degree -- indeed, the spirit of the witch-hunts did not seem to sprout out of nothing: the Fat Friar was executed in the Middle Ages not for a magical mishap, but for being found to use magic to merely cure the pox; Hengist of Woodcroft founded Hogsmeade in the Middle Ages as he was being persecuted by Muggles; Linfred of Stinchcombe concealed the fact that he was a wizard from his Muggle neighbours in the 12th century, even though he was on friendly terms with them. On the other end of the spectrum, wizarding anti-Muggle sentiment prior to the witch-hunts is also not unheard of: Salazar Slytherin is an obvious one, as is the fact that Merlin felt the need to champion the defence of Muggles. Again, your assumption that "no mention or other indication that Nick admitted to what he was Lady Grieve and hoped she would keep the secret" is just that, an assumption and an argument from ignorance (i.e. concluding that something is the case because that something has not been disproven). I should also note that wizards being part of Muggle nobility is proof of nothing: Sir Herbert Varney lived in the 19th century; Lord Stoddard Withers lived most of his life after the Statute of Secrecy; the Duke of Trefle-Picques during the French Revolution (about a century post-Statute of Secrecy) was also a wizard. I reassert we know nothing about the relationship between the Wizards' Council and the Crown. Passing anything else as canonical fact is baseless conjecture at best and fanfiction at worst. -- [[User:Seth Cooper| Seth Cooper ]][[User talk:Seth Cooper| owl post!]] 22:59, March 12, 2018 (UTC) Obviously this is a question of the application of logic, and yours, at its core, are flawed, because again, that's not how you analyze a work of fiction. Twist and turn it all you want, but I assert, once again, that authors don't lie and/or actively decieve their readers unless it is important to the plot to make some kind of twist at the end. In literature, whenever a writer puts an ambigious end to their work, and as such leaves it to the imagination of the reader, it is always depicted to end in a manner suggesting that to have been the intention of the author. This, by contrast, is mere filler/background information and thus does not fall under such a category and is not ''mant to be left "open for intepretation", but rather a case of "what we have is what we got". We know the Wizards' Council existed in medieval time. We know the land on which it existed was an absolute monarchy. We know that widespread prosecution of wizardkind were yet to happen, so the whole "country or kind" concept wouldn't be a thing yet, and least not collctively, so you do the math. For the Wizard's Council to assert their will above that of the ruling monarch by effectively ruling over portions of their subjects without prior knowledge or consent of the Crown would be high treason, the punishment for which were death and would mark them as traitors of the realm. If the wizarding population willingly permitted itself to be governed by the Council, the wizarding population would likewise collectively be guilty of recognising another authority than the king's without the consent of the Crown, the wizarding population as a whole would have been marked for death, and widespread prosecution would have started much, much earlier. For a small fraction of wizards to wield any sort of authority over the rest, regardless of whether or not it was because they happened to share the same abilities as themselves, ''without the leave of their king, would mean the lives of evey man, woman and child with magical ability. I just wouldn't happen. It would be like the founders dciding to build the castle of Hogwarts on top of an active vulcano that could erupt and kill everybody within without them having any means to stop it from doing so just because it was an active vulcano and they liked the challenge. Prior to the 1600s, even if the collective wizarding population as a whole was not a fully integrated members of the non-magical society, again, several were. And since the prosecution of witches and wizards weren't widespread, the whole "country or kind" concept not really a thing yet, the magical population in Great Britain and/or Ireland as a whole had yet to be pushed far enough as to ask itself whether they should go into hiding or go to war with Muggles,and ''those openly associating with Muggles in a time of an absolute monarchy was known to exist. During medieval times, even if Muggles was not good at recognising magic when seeing it, the existence of those using it was no secret at all. It would be impossible for the existence of a medieval wizarding body to exist in secret under such conditions.The only ones who would be almost guranteed to keep secret about witches and wizards were those engaged in a romantic or parental relationship with them, even good friends would not be all that reliable, because the life of peasants during the medieval era was hard and most would do almost anything to see the lives and those of their loved ones secured. Social advancement and a political grasp for power under the monarchy would mean that Muggle nobility would for obvious reasons be even more likely to hold alligiance to the king above wizarding companions (after all, the monarchy was the ones who granted their family their social standing and was in a position to improve it even further if served well or strip them off all lands and titles and possibly even call for their execution if they don't) would also be a motivator for Muggles to rat wizards out. All it would take for the king to learn about the Council, assuming it could concievably have been established in secret and still have the best interests of wizardkind at heart, what, with the openly agreeing of running the risk of widespread prosecution of wizardkind pre-1600s for the mere pleasure of bossing their peers around, and all, would be for a single witch or wizard too short-sighted to see the far-reaching rammefication of letting slip the existence of a secret Wizards' Council to Muggle associates between the founding of the Council pre-1269 and the 1600's, with a single selfish Muggle deciding they would benefit from informing someone in a position to pass it on to the monarchy and reap the reward for honesty about the culprits of such treasonous activity. Human beings are not perfect, infaliable or all-benevolent. They are not perfect saints. The idea that no Muggle hearing the mention of a Wizards' Council that have not been sanctioned by the Crown, either by overhearing it or being told of it by wizards doing so carelessly or accidentially, would ever pass on this information with the hopes of making life a little better for themselves by doing so between the founding of the Council and the imposition of the International Statutes, is plain old ridiculous. There are no intepretation to be made, really. You have the Council, you have an absolute monarcy, and you take it for what it is, not what it '''might' be because you one have some subjective theory or opinion on the matter. Ninclow (talk) 07:42, March 13, 2018 (UTC) :The author is not lying or deceiving their readership when they happen to not say something. We cannot presume to know Rowling's intentions when she is mute about something: for all we know you may be wasting your time attempting to "deduce" something that never even crossed her mind -- "What we have is what we got" indeed. That we do not have had any significant insight on the power structure in medieval British society is a fact: it is therefore wrong to to pass any form of speculation on the subject as fact. :It is also a gross over-simplification of the British political history to pass it off as simply an "absolute monarchy" like most other continental monarchies -- limits on the power of the monarch were not unheard-of in 13th-century England: the Magna Carta was drafted in 1215 (and indeed its forerunner, the Charter of Liberties, predated it by over a century), and the Curia regis (royal council) was developed into a Parliament (perhaps modeled on the older Anglo-Saxon Witenagemot). Not that the nuance matters much anyway; the term "absolute monarchy" is nowhere to be found in canon. -- [[User:Seth Cooper| Seth Cooper ]][[User talk:Seth Cooper| owl post!]] 00:09, March 14, 2018 (UTC) :the term "absolute monarchy" is nowhere to be found in canon - ''what do that have to do with anything? The fact of the matter is that wizarding Britain is depicted in the books to live side by side with our real world, not some alternative universe. The only times "Muggle history" is when Rowling has haven't bothered to do her homework. ''That was her intention. That is what she was trying to get across through seven books/that whole concept of the world of Harry Potter. Unless Rowling mess up a date by accident, or made concious decisions to change things about real life events to fit her story, everything else unfolds as it did in our real world because again, it is not an AU, it is 'our' world, if a bit clumsely represented in the mathmatics department. Real life events canonically happened as they really happened unless its important for her story that specific ones didn't. :Also - this is not an argument, but just throwing it out there: Rowling has never been innocent of grossly simplifying things in the past. You might recall a little thing called "The History of Magic in North America"? :P Ninclow (talk) 06:01, March 14, 2018 (UTC) ::My point was that, unlike what happened in Continental Europe (namely France in which the system flourished) "absolute monarchy" is a term not usually employed to describe England, either historically or, indeed, in canon. And that even if it was, that would not be nearly enough to make any assumptions on the matter. -- [[User:Seth Cooper| Seth Cooper ]][[User talk:Seth Cooper| owl post!]] 15:39, March 14, 2018 (UTC) ::The monarcy, even if they weren't an absolute one, had significantly more power then than now. The monarch ules the land. All who lives on that land is their subjects,.Any subject, magical or nay, trying to set their will above that of the Crown, is guilty of high treason and will hence be ordered executed the moment the monarch found out, as are everybody in league with those people. A Wizards' Council existing without prior consent of the Crown pre-witch hunting, would mean the Council condemns wizardkind in Britain to death, and witch hunts starting to be widespread much, much sooner. It just wouldn't happen. Ninclow (talk) 20:02, March 14, 2018 (UTC) :We don't know that. -- [[User:Seth Cooper| Seth Cooper ]][[User talk:Seth Cooper| owl post!]] 21:23, March 14, 2018 (UTC)